GIT-CVSIMPORT(1) Git Manual GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)NAME
git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate
SYNOPSISgitcvsimport [-o <branch-for-HEAD>] [-h] [-v] [-d <CVSROOT>]
[-A <author-conv-file>] [-p <options-for-cvsps>] [-P <file>]
[-C <git_repository>] [-z <fuzz>] [-i] [-k] [-u] [-s <subst>]
[-a] [-m] [-M <regex>] [-S <regex>] [-L <commitlimit>]
[-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS_module>]
DESCRIPTION
Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new repository, or incrementally import into an
existing one.
Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by cvsps. At least version 2.1 is required.
WARNING: for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results. Please see the section ISSUES for
further reference.
You should never do any work of your own on the branches that are created by gitcvsimport. By default initial
import will create and populate a "master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which you're free to
work with; after that, you need to gitmerge incremental imports, or any CVS branches, yourself. It is
advisable to specify a named remote via -r to separate and protect the incoming branches.
If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers can read/write, or if you want to use
git-cvsserver(1), then you probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository, and use the clone as
the shared repository. See gitcvs-migration(7).
OPTIONS
-v
Verbosity: let cvsimport report what it is doing.
-d <CVSROOT>
The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or remote; currently, only the :local:, :ext: and
:pserver: access methods are supported. If not given, gitcvsimport will try to read it from CVS/Root. If
no such file exists, it checks for the CVSROOT environment variable.
<CVS_module>
The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>. If not given, gitcvsimport tries to read it from
CVS/Repository.
-C <target-dir>
The git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't exist, it will be created. Default is the current
directory.
-r <remote>
The git remote to import this CVS repository into. Moves all CVS branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch>
akin to the way gitclone uses origin by default.
-o <branch-for-HEAD>
When no remote is specified (via -r) the HEAD branch from CVS is imported to the origin branch within the
git repository, as HEAD already has a special meaning for git. When a remote is specified the HEAD branch
is named remotes/<remote>/master mirroring gitclone behaviour. Use this option if you want to import into
a different branch.
Use -omaster for continuing an import that was initially done by the old cvs2git tool.
-i
Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing. This option ensures the working directory and index
remain untouched and will not create them if they do not exist.
-k
Kill keywords: will extract files with -kk from the CVS archive to avoid noisy changesets. Highly
recommended, but off by default to preserve compatibility with early imported trees.
-u
Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
-s <subst>
Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
-p <options-for-cvsps>
Additional options for cvsps. The options -u and -A are implicit and should not be used here.
If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
-z <fuzz>
Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset, cvsps defaults to 300s.
-P <cvsps-output-file>
Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file. Useful for debugging or when cvsps is being
handled outside cvsimport.
-m
Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option will enable default regexes that try to
capture the source branch name from the commit message.
-M <regex>
Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom regex. It can be used with -m to enable
the default regexes as well. You must escape forward slashes.
The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
-S <regex>
Skip paths matching the regex.
-a
Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default skips commits that have a timestamp less
than 10 minutes ago.
-L <limit>
Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where cvsimport leaks memory.
-A <author-conv-file>
CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its commit logs. Using this option and an
author-conv-file in this format
exon=Andreas Ericsson <aeATop5.se>
spawn=Simon Pawn <spawnATfrog-pond.org>
gitcvsimport will make it appear as those authors had their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set
properly all along.
For convenience, this data is saved to $GIT_DIR/cvs-authors each time the -A option is provided and read
from that same file each time gitcvsimport is run.
It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to export changes back to CVS again later with gitcvsexportcommit.
-R
Generate a $GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions file containing a mapping from CVS revision numbers to newly-created Git
commit IDs. The generated file will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair imported; each line
will look like
src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when doing incremental imports.
This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored in commit messages, bug-tracking systems,
email archives, and the like.
-h
Print a short usage message and exit.
OUTPUT
If -v is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with a zero exit status.
ISSUES
Problems related to timestamps:
? If timestamps of commits in the CVS repository are not stable enough to be used for ordering commits
changes may show up in the wrong order.
? If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import of more than one vendor release) the
HEAD contains the wrong content.
? If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order within the commit matching time window
the order of commits may be wrong.
Problems related to branches:
? Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
? All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if never added in CVS.
? This applies to files added to the source branch after a daughter branch was created: if previously no
commit was made on the daughter branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter branch in git.
Problems related to tags:
? Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you want to import consider using these
alternative tools which proved to be more stable in practice:
? cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), http://cvs2svn.tigris.org
? parsecvs, http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvsGIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 1.7.11.3 08/29/2012 GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)